


Fine

by whichstiel



Series: Season 15 Codas [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s15e06 Golden Time, Fishing, Foxes, Gen, episode coda, spn 15x6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24893461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: Castiel rents a cabin and tries to fish away his sorrow. He's FINE.
Series: Season 15 Codas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514042
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	Fine

Castiel glared at the tree lying drunkenly across the road. The spread of its roots stood taller than a man on the steep slope, and it had collapsed down to blockade the shoreline drive. The tree’s crown lay half submerged in the lake, still green and lush. Its trunk was wide, and sturdy, and completely in Castiel’s way.

Long grass licked his legs as Castiel stalked the length of the tree, his fingertips trailing over the knobbled trunk. “Damn storm,” he muttered, leaning hard into the tree. It rocked once, twice, with its roots still forked firmly into the hillside. Castiel lifted his chin Heavenwards out of long, fruitless habit. “Thank you,” he directed sarcastically towards the clearing post-storm sky. “Very helpful.” Behind him, his engine ticked like a weary clock as it cooled in the early morning chill.

Down the road and just around the bend of the lake, the dirt track died at the skirt of the little cabin Castiel was renting. Beyond the cabin there was nothing but thick woods and clouds of mosquitoes. His only way out was past the tree. He pressed his palm against the trunk and for a moment he let his mind cloud with thoughts of fire. He could burn it away, easy as anything, and drive down the road. Leave this town. Power welled under his skin and in the air, channeling down into his fingertips and—

 _Oh_.

Castiel snatched his hand away from the trunk, curling his fingers upward like a wounded thing and wrapping his arms close to his body. Funny how he could have angelic vision, clear as a high altitude sunrise, and instead of that damn tree all he could see was Jack. Jack’s face, his eyes, his mouth burning as Castiel pushed his rage and horror into him. Into…into his body.

“Not Jack,” Castiel reeled back, letting momentum carry him to the hood of his car and the bumper kiss the backs of his knees until he buckled onto it. He closed his eyes. He breathed in. Out. The forest transpired around him, glorious with rain and teeming with birdsong proclaiming their survival of another storm, another night, another moment.

On second thought, maybe he’d stay here forever. Become one with the mold in the cabin and wait quietly for the world to end already.

“Maybe I will,” he muttered at last. Castiel pushed away from the car and made his way down the bank to the flood-cut shoreline. He collapsed more than sat at the shaded edge, stretching one foot down to dangle just above the water. Wrapping one arm around his leg and perching the other on his thigh, Castiel let his head drop into his hands. He stayed there, circling peace fruitlessly as the rising sun warmed him from shoe to shin.

He didn’t hear the cry at first, too caught up in the thunderhead roar of his own mind to pay much heed to anything. But eventually, the feeble _wowowowowow_ drilled into him, instinct hooking a finger into his resolve to hold himself apart from the world. There was a creature in distress, Castiel realized, lifting his head from his knuckles. It sounded _young_.

A light breeze hissed through leaves. The water, though still storm brackish, lapped agreeably against the steeply undercut shoreline in a steady counterpoint to the wail.

_wowowowowow_

The sound was high, mournful, and hidden from sight by a swamp white oak whose exposed roots arched like a concert pianist’s fingers over the ledge. Castiel rose slowly and, with hands and questing feet, scrambled his way down the bank. His shoes squelched in the mud as he crouched down low.

The sound ceased as soon as Castiel began moving down the bank, but now he could see the source of it. It was a small animal, with wide high ears and copper fur visible beneath matted mud. “A fox,” Castiel murmured, bemused. The kit shivered at his voice, pressing into the soil around it like it was desperately trying to burrow into it. Castiel glanced around quickly before turning back. “Where’s your mother?” The fox trembled. “Your burrow must be nearby. Unless?” Castiel looked back at the now placid lake, which he knew had been white capped with last night’s wind. “Well. She’ll find you.” He eased back on his heels and then carefully, slowly, Castiel pulled himself back up the bank.

Castiel walked back to his car slowly. The tree still lay across the road and he paused in front of the trunk and sighed, contemplating his options. His car waited quietly. He opened the door and instead of sliding into the seat he kneeled on the driver’s side and half crawled over to the passenger side. Flipping open the glove box, he pulled out a crumpled bag of beef jerky, original flavor. Briefly, he frowned at it. The zippered closure bent like a bolt of lightning, misshapen from being shoved in his car for months. Dean had eaten half the bag after a hunt, when he’d been haggard and flinty sharp from hunger. The food had soothed him. Maybe…

Back down the bank in a flash, Castiel fished a few small pieces from the bag of jerky and hunched down again, balancing carefully on the balls of his feet. He tossed them near the fox, who remained curled in a miserable ball. “It’s okay,” Castiel assured it. “It’s meat. It’s good. Or, it’s probably still good.” Dean had once called beef jerky _fine for the end of the world._ Which end of the world it had been? There’d been so many.

Castiel rubbed the bright spot of tension that refused to leave his brow. “It’s okay,” he told the fox again and was rewarded when it furtively dipped its nose. It was still trembling, but the little animal focused on the meat lying near its paw. It grabbed the small piece of jerky and, belly low to the ground, it began to chew. Something in Castiel eased, seeing it move towards food. The fox was trying to survive, and if that wasn’t a little bit of good in an awful world?

Now that it was stretched out and eating though, Castiel could see the black and red of a sluggishly bleeding wound along its back. “Hey,” he said, stretching out a hand quickly. Too quickly. The fox shied away again. Castiel froze, leaving two fingers extended near the creature. “I won’t hurt you,” he assured it. “I just want to help.”

Incrementally, the fox relaxed again and went back to roughly chewing on the jerky like Castiel was just a tree branch arched overhead. This time when Castiel lowered his fingers, the fox trembled but did not move away. Without touching the creature, Castiel released his grace, willing the wound to heal.

The fox sighed into its small meal with the relief of an animal who had grown too used to pain. Castiel dipped his chin like a salute. Again, he started to ease back and up, away from the animal. To his surprise, the fox looked up sharply as he did so, and then bounded forward with a tiny _yip._

Castiel’s eyebrows went up. “You need help up this bank? Is that it?” He knelt back down and placed both hands palm up and together on the ground. Cool mud pressed into his knuckles as the young fox climbed onto Castiel’s makeshift platform and then they were standing up together to meet the crest of the bank. Castiel moved his hands over the solid earth to let the little fox dismount, but the fox remained crouched on his hands.

“You were cold and I’m warm. Is that it?” Castiel murmured, but he cupped his hands into a better bowl and willed more heat into them. The little fox settled in with a sigh, whipping its tail around to fill in the empty spaces and tickle its nose. It licked its sharp little teeth, blinked at Castiel once, and then closed its eyes.

“Um.”

The fox took a deep, slow breath and let it out. Its heart fluttered like the quick, small thing it was - delicate and robust.

Castiel stared at the fox for a moment or minutes, the sun warming his calves and heating the back of his coat. “Okay,” he said at last. The fox woke as he carefully maneuvered himself back up to the bank, but other than bobbing its head as Castiel moved, it seemed unperturbed. As soon as Castiel settled himself on the bank again, the fox went back to sleep.

“Okay,” Castiel whispered again, cradling the fox in his lap as the sun burned away memories of the storm.

* * *

The next few days with the fox were too full of mischief to dwell on much else. In a matter of hours, the fox went from frightened cries to mischievous yips and growls. He’d used his grace as she slept to siphon the mud off of her, and to eradicate three ticks and a case of ear mites. It had done her a world of good. Castiel fished with a different purpose, and this time he fed his catch to the little fox. She was a bundle of furry energy, bright eyes in a ball of red and black fluff.

He talked to her.

“I cared for a cat once,” he confided as she dozed in a fold of his coat. “For two days while I was hunting a pack of rugaru. Rugaru,” he said, stroking one finger down the thin bridge of her nose, “are creatures which feast on human flesh. That’s a bad thing,” he whispered. “Don’t do that. Anyway, the motel had a cat that liked to visit the rooms. Beg for food. I never had anything except what I keep in my car for D—. I, uh, never really have food. But it came into my room one day anyway. Slipped inside when I was walking in like it owned the place and curled up on the bed. I called it Salty. It had little…” Castiel wrinkled his nose, remembering. “Little speckles of white on gray fur like someone had upended a salt shaker. It was a good little cat. Purred a lot.” The little fox sucked in a breath, rounding her whole body in the effort, and then let it out again. “It was nice. Relaxing.”

The Adirondack chair creaked as Castiel shifted, pulling the fox deeper into her nest. “I don’t know why I haven’t named you yet,” he said, though the hole in his chest that was always there these days refuted the statement. “We should find your mother. Maybe we’ll go on a hike and try to find your den.” The fox rippled her tongue through her sharp little teeth and Castiel hummed. “Or we can stay here.” He sighed. “I should catch you more fish.” Carefully, he slipped out of his coat sleeves and let the coat pool around the fox into a warm cave of fabric. “I’ll be back,” he told her gently, and left her on the chair to head down to the shore.

According to the shop owner from whom he’d rented the cabin, fishing was poor in this lake at the best of times. It was too shallow to grow them large, and too sluggish to encourage most species. This hadn’t bothered Castiel at first. He’d been seeking the meditative aspects of fishing, desperately trying to work through his grief and anger. In many ways, it had been easier to not catch anything. Just him and a still line on an immovable shore. Now that he had a little fox to feed, catching food became paramount.

Castiel released his line and freed the colorful lure from it’s loop. He cast it out towards the center of the small lake with a practiced flick of his wrist. _Just like throwing a blade._ The lure sank and Castiel reeled it in slowly. Reel. Cast. Repeat. The quiet lake sank into his bones, relaxed the lines on his face, eased the tension he’d borne for years.

_geckgeckgecker_

The little fox pounced on Castiel’s belt moments after announcing herself, clipping her teeth on the leather with a playful growl. “Stop that,” Castiel said without any intention behind the words. He smiled and brought his hand behind him so she could press her nose into his palm. “No, I didn’t catch anything. Don’t have anything yet.” He sighed and looked down the shoreline as though he could picture the winding road that skirted it on its way back into town. “But I may go into town tomorrow.”

_gecker_

She nipped at his sleeve and he brought his arm back around, pulling her with him and tickling at her belly as he did so. “I know, but you should eat food. Fresh food,” he amended. “Not just the last of my jerky. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go?”

The fox climbed over Castiel’s wrist, her mouth pulled back in a little canine smile before wrapping her whole body around his forearm and pricking sharp nails and teeth into his skin. “I won’t be long,” he said. “I promise.” He shifted her to attack his folded knee, and reeled in the line. “Come on. Let’s get you a snack and then we’ll go for a walk in the woods a little while. See if we can find your home.” He carried the fox in one arm and in the other, his fishing pole. Together, they walked back to the cabin.

* * *

The next morning, Castiel burned away the tree, filling the woods with the wrath of Heaven and clearing the road for his car. The little fox was at the cabin, playing merrily with a deer jawbone they’d pulled from the underbrush the previous day. “I’ll be back soon,” he told the woods behind him as he climbed into his car and started it. “I’ll get some food. See about a new lure or two. And then I’ll be back.”

Castiel drove to town with one mission, but he came back with another.

The road leading to the cabin from town was a slim thing. Twisting broken asphalt transformed quickly into a single lane dirt track that skirted the smallest lake in the chain and deposited him at the house teetering by the lake shore. The road greened up near the seldom-used cabin, overrun with grasses and low growing weeds. It felt like he had to crawl down it at a snail-slide pace. It was infuriating. His mind teased over the news of the bloodless body. The missing boy.

_The missing boy._

By the time Castiel shut off his car and grabbed the small bag of groceries (fresh meat, fish, and several cans of dog food) he was already plotting his next moves. He’d head to the Sheriff and bluster his way onto the case. It was nothing he hadn’t done before and he— He could do it on his own.

The cabin was quiet. He whistled for her, his heart already sinking. “Fox!” he called. “Where are you? Little fox?” He dropped the bag on the wooden chair sitting on the porch and stalked around the perimeter of the cabin. “Little fox?” Castiel raised his voice. Although the woods teemed with the sounds of life - birdsong and insects - his own voice unanswered by the fox made the forest seem too large. Too empty.

“Little fox?” he said, quieter this time as he rounded back to his abandoned bag of food. “Oh. I hope you’re okay.” There’d been no blood. No signs of a struggle. Castiel shook his head at that. Listen to him. “No signs of a struggle,” he said. “This isn’t a case. It’s just life. Maybe it’s all that. I…I don’t know.” After another minute of careful listening, he picked up the bag and carried it into the cabin.

While guilt told him time was of the essence, he took some time to pull away the wrappings from the food. He laid it all outside along the porch in a series of bowls and plates. If the fox didn’t come back to eat it, surely something else would. When no fox came tumbling out of the woods, he went inside to shut off the water and power box. It was time to leave, then. Castiel took one more look at the cabin and then opened his car door.

_yipyipyip_

Castiel caught his breath and turned, the smile an involuntary quirk of his lips. “Little fox?” he asked hopefully. From the undergrowth, a little red kit tumbled out, still brightly clean. She ambled into the clearing and behind her, staying well back, a large female stood sheltering two more small kits. He knelt down and extended his hand.

This time, instead of curling into his palm, the little fox pranced around the tips of his fingers, dodging back and forth playfully. He laughed quietly. “Okay. Okay. You found me. Glad you found your family.” He waggled two fingers and the fox dragged her chin along them, teeth scraping the pads. “I’ve got to go now. Gotta help someone else find their family. I…I don’t know if I’ll be back.” He stroked along her spine. “Probably won’t be. But you’ll be fine.”

He watched the fox race back towards the woods, feet kicking high with excitement.

“You’ll be fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Do I remember how to write? Lord no, it's been so long. Feels good to post something again though. I'm sure I don't need to tell you all how crazy it's been... Hope all you readers are doing well!
> 
> Thanks for reading! I’m on Tumblr @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, Shirtless Sammy.


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